CODEWITHSUNDEEP
powershellhttp-redirect
smaclell
smaclell

Reputation: 4658

Writing errors and output to a text file and Console

I am trying to write the entire output (errors included) of an executing script to the console and a file at the same time. I have tried several different options:

.\MyScript.ps1 | tee -filePath C:\results.txt # only the output to the file
.\MyScript.ps1 2> C:\results.txt # only the errors to the file and not the console
.\MyScript.ps1 > C:\results.txt # only the output to the file and not the console

My hope was that I could use the file to review the output/errors.

EDIT:

This is my current test script. The desired results is that all three messages can be seen.

function Test-Error 
{
    echo "echo"
    Write-Warning "warning"
    Write-Error "error"       
}

Test-Error 2>&1 | tee -filePath c:\results.txt

Upvotes: 33

Views: 146729

Answers (4)

Ramakant Dadhichi
Ramakant Dadhichi

Reputation: 403

By default only the Success stream of data is passed on to the Output file. To direct errors and warnings you will have to add something like this :

your script 3>&1 2>&1 | Out-file log.txt

Powershell redirection operators.

Upvotes: 8

David Gladfelter
David Gladfelter

Reputation: 4213

Have you tried:

 .\MyScript.ps1 2>&1 | tee -filePath c:\results.txt

2>&1 is what you're looking for

Note: This answer works great in PowerShell 1.0 and 2.0, but will capture ONLY standard output and errors in PowerShell 3.0 and later.

Upvotes: 29

jdgregson
jdgregson

Reputation: 1587

I wasn't satisfied with any answer I was finding, so I mixed a few and came up with this (in PowerShell 3.0+):

$output = try{your_command *>&1}catch{$_}

With this you can capture all errors and output that are generated by trying to use your_command.

It catches exceptions when you use a non-existent command:

PS C:\Users\jdgregson> $output = try{your_command *>&1}catch{$_}
PS C:\Users\jdgregson> echo $output
your_command : The term 'your_command' is not recognized as the name of a
cmdlet, function, script file, or operable program. Check the spelling of the
name, or if a path was included, verify that the path is correct and try again.
At line:1 char:15
+ $output = try{your_command 2>&1}catch{$_}
+               ~~~~~~~~~~~~
    + CategoryInfo          : ObjectNotFound: (your_command:String) [], Comman
   dNotFoundException
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : CommandNotFoundException

PS C:\Users\jdgregson>

It catches exceptions when you pass invalid arguments to an existing command:

PS C:\Users\jdgregson> $output = try{cat C:\invalid-path.txt *>&1}catch{$_}
PS C:\Users\jdgregson> echo $output
cat : Cannot find path 'C:\invalid-path.txt' because it does not exist.
At line:1 char:15
+ $output = try{cat C:\invalid-path.txt 2>&1}catch{$_}
+               ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    + CategoryInfo          : ObjectNotFound: (C:\invalid-path.txt:String) [Ge
   t-Content], ItemNotFoundException
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : PathNotFound,Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.GetCo
   ntentCommand

And it catches the output if there was no problem with your command at all:

PS C:\Users\jdgregson> $output = try{cat C:\valid-path.txt *>&1}catch{$_}
PS C:\Users\jdgregson> echo $output
this file is really here

It works for your example too:

PS C:\Users\jdgregson> $output = try{Test-Error *>&1}catch{$_}
PS C:\Users\jdgregson> echo $output
echo
WARNING: warning
Test-Error : error
At line:1 char:15
+ $output = try{Test-Error *>&1}catch{$_}
+               ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    + CategoryInfo          : NotSpecified: (:) [Write-Error], WriteErrorExcep
   tion
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.WriteErrorExceptio
   n,Test-Error

Upvotes: 11

user1096785
user1096785

Reputation: 39

I couldn't get both errors and results in the same file. A workaround that worked for me:

.\MyScript.ps1 2> C:\errors.txt | tee -filePath C:\results.txt

Update: I have worked further and I used Start-Transcript and Stop-Transcript in my mode to capture everything and it worked!

Upvotes: 3

Related Questions